Victoria Silman | Assistant News Editor
Featured Image: Students accused of violating the Student Code have yet to come to an agreement for informal resolution with the university. | Sunraj Benipal
On October 9, Karmah Dudin, Susanna Hermanns, and Carrie Cooper, three of the eight students accused of violating the Student Code of Conduct during their occupation of the Senate Chambers, met with the administration to discuss a resolution. An agreement was not reached, and negotiations will continue on October 17.
Though the hearings are entirely confidential, Hermanns remarked: “Because we agreed to confidentiality, I am not allowed to disclose what happened, but I left the restorative justice circle feeling extremely exhausted and interrogated.”
Their trial with the university has sparked controversy among students and faculty, resulting in a rally that was held in Vari Hall on October 3, to show support, and express discontent with the proceedings.
According to Tyler Ball, one of the graduate students involved in the suit, the rally was intended to show the “shift from this just being an issue about us to this being an issue about the Code itself, and the way the Code was imposed upon the community.”
Furthermore, on October 4 from 4:30 p.m. to 6:00 p.m., an open forum sponsored by the Senate Executive Committee was held to give students an opportunity to express their grievances with the university administration on various issues. An email sent to students inviting them to attend expressed the forum as a place for students to voice their opinions on “regaining institutional momentum.”
The forum also gave the students involved in the case a platform to voice their concerns directly to President and Vice Chancellor Rhonda Lenton. According to Hermanns, she expressed her frustrations about the process she and the other students have been going through.
“I said to Lenton: ‘I am being offered the privilege of informal resolution—a meeting behind closed doors—where if you don’t like my response, I will be put through the tribunal anyway; a kangaroo court set up by the very people we are pleading to for answers about the strike,’” she explains.
According to Asaf Rashid, the lawyer representing the three students, informal resolution is a process meant to form a fair agreement to ensure punishment is doled out. To provide a clearer picture of the process, he says: “It is a mediated discussion, where both parties discuss the incidents that make up the complaints, the impacts of the incidents and possible ways to satisfy the objectives of both sides.
“If no resolution can be reached, the matter will proceed to a rescheduled tribunal. Regardless, the content of the resolution discussions are confidential. Also, no statement made in the resolution discussions by either party can be used against the other at the tribunal,” he continues.
The discussion, which will span into a second day, is mediated by a third party with the goal of coming to a fair agreement.
The university previously declined to comment further on the matter.
